


Guilt

by purpleinked



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Also Swearing Oops, Angst, Canon Typical Violence, Cheating, Death of a Significant Other, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Reid is Gay, Slow Burn, it takes him a while, kind of a case fic?, lots of emotions happen, morgan doesn't know he's bi, season seven ish
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-19
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2018-12-31 17:19:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12137346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purpleinked/pseuds/purpleinked
Summary: Reid has a secret he hasn’t told the team. He can’t keep that secret much longer.Hurt/comfort. Slowburn Morgan/Reid, but starts with Reid in a relationship with an OMC – kind of.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! This is going to be a very, very slowburn Reid/Morgan fic, so please be patient on that front - they will get together eventually, I promise :)
> 
> This is a very heavy story emotionally, but I'm not planning on writing any graphically violent scenes. Where there are violent events in the story, I will try to keep them as non-graphic and "off-screen" as possible, especially in the case of sexual violence. However, there will be violence, including sexual violence, referenced in this story, which will sometimes involve the events being recounted by the characters affected. If that is a possible trigger for you, please read at your own discretion.

It had been two days since Reid had kicked Jasper out of his apartment, and he wasn’t feeling any less angry. Or, more accurately, he wouldn’t allow himself to not feel angry, because then he might think about calling Jasper and begging him to come back.

He hadn’t officially broken up with Jasper. After his boyfriend’s admission that he’d slept with another man the week before, Reid had simply told him to leave. He hadn’t said not to come back, or that he never wanted to see Jasper again, or anything like that. All he’d said was, “Leave.” And Jasper had done just that.

Reid didn’t want to admit that the fact Jasper hadn’t even tried to call him – not even to arrange picking up his things from Reid’s apartment – was eating him alive. He was glad, he told himself. He deserved better than Jasper. He deserved someone who wanted him, and him alone, the way he had always wanted Jasper. It was good riddance, he told himself. He was better off without that cheating scum.

When his phone rang that afternoon, though, there was a split second when he hoped he’d see Jasper’s name on the screen. He ignored the plummeting of his heart when he saw Hotch’s name instead.

“Reid,” he greeted automatically.

“We have a case,” Hotch told him. Despite it being eight o’clock on a Saturday night, Reid found himself being weirdly happy about the news. This could prove a welcome distraction. “Can you make it in in an hour and a half?”

Reid responded in the affirmative, and Hotch said a quick “Alright. See you then,” before hanging up.

So, it was that just over an hour later, Reid pulled up to the BAU headquarters, having quickly pulled on some work-appropriate attire and grabbed his satchel from where he’d left it dumped on his sofa. Morgan gave him a long look as he came in, but Reid simply ignored him. Morgan wasn’t stupid – he would have noticed Reid was acting weird at work yesterday, as much as Reid had tried to hide it – but Reid didn’t feel like explaining. The team hadn’t even known that Reid was in a relationship, let alone that he was gay.

There was a long, awkward silence as Morgan watched Reid hang his satchel over the back of a chair and sit down. “Hey, pretty boy,” he said eventually. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.” Reid was sure that the lie was not at all convincing, but Morgan didn’t press further.

It wasn’t long before the rest of the team arrived, and Hotch started the briefing. “Over the past two months, four men have been found strangled and dumped near the Potomac River,” he explained. “The first two men have been identified – Adam Henderson and Marc Ñíguez. Henderson’s body was found on August fifth; Ñíguez’s exactly a month later, on September fifth. The third man, who is yet to be identified, was found on September twenty-second. The fourth, also unidentified, was found earlier today.”

As Hotch spoke, pictures of each man appeared on the screen. They were all dark-haired and relatively muscular men, but beyond that there was little comparison. Their facial features differed largely. Henderson and the unidentified third man were white, yet Ñíguez was latino. Henderson had tattoos and a beard, whereas the others didn’t. There didn’t seem to be much similar between the victims.

Reid recognised the fourth picture as soon as it appeared.

Jasper.

His face was pale, his eyes glazed and ghostly, and there was violent bruising around his neck, but it was him. Reid felt his face go slack in shock.

Jasper…was one of the victims…

Jasper was dead.

Jasper was dead, gone, brutally murdered. Reid felt as if there was no air left in the room, and he struggled to breathe. He was only vaguely aware of the distant, worried calls of his team. Jasper was dead. Jasper was dead and he hadn’t even known.

“Reid? Hey, kid!”

He could feel an arm on his shoulder, and he struggled to focus on the face in front of him. Morgan’s eyes were full of confusion and concern.

Reid finally managed to respond. He gestured to the screen. “The…the fourth…”

He saw understanding flash across Morgan’s face, and the older agent wrapped Reid in a tight hug. Neither of them said anything. In the background, Hotch instructed Garcia to take Jasper’s image off the screen.

Reid wasn’t crying. He felt frozen and lost, his brain unable to accept the idea that Jasper was really gone. He could hear someone reminding him to breathe. A comforting hand squeezed his shoulder. It didn’t help.

* * *

Hotch had suggested that Reid stay in his office for a while, where it was a bit more private, while the rest of the team started looking over the case properly. Morgan had opted to stay with Reid, not wanting the younger agent to be left by himself.

Morgan spun the two chairs facing Hotch’s desk around so that they were facing each other, and then sat down in one of them. He gestured for Reid to sit in the other.

“You don’t have to,” he began, “but if you’re up to talking…?”

Reid blinked. He’d almost forgotten, in the shock of it all, that he would now have to tell the team everything. It had seemed such a big thing, even just a week ago, if the team had found out he was gay. Now it was almost inconsequential.

But what if he’d had died two nights ago when Reid had thrown him out of his apartment? It had been about three a.m., and he didn’t drive… He would have been so vulnerable, making his way home in the dark. An easy target – and Reid had made him that way.

He didn’t want to ask the question, but he knew that he had to. “When…did he…?”

Morgan flicked through the file he’d brought through from the conference room, but he got to the end before he found what he was looking for. “We’re still waiting on the autopsy report,” he concluded reluctantly.

Reid nodded. Of course they were; it had only been a few hours since the body had been found, after all.

“What was his name?” Morgan’s voice was almost a whisper.

“Uhm, J– Jasper,” Reid answered. His voice, too, was barely audible. “Randall.”

“When did you last see him?” Morgan prodded gently.

“Thursday night,” Reid croaked. “He…we…uh, we had an argument.”

Morgan frowned. “Is that why you were acting all off yesterday?” he questioned, and Reid nodded in response. “Okay. Do you want to talk about the argument?”

Reid took a deep breath. Sure, he thought. Here goes nothing. “Yeah, uh, he told me he’d slept with another man,” he admitted. He felt like he was forcing the words out, using all the strength he had. He didn’t look at Morgan’s face. He didn’t want to know how the other man was responding. “Early last week. When we were on the case in Colorado.”

He finally looked up at Morgan, only to find him staring at Reid with an expression that was utterly unreadable. A few seconds passed. Eventually, Reid felt the need to clarify.

“I’m gay.”

“Yeah, I…” Morgan frowned. “I didn’t know that.”

Reid shrugged. “I wanted to tell you, but…I don’t know. It was hard.”

“You know, you never have to be afraid to tell me anything,” Morgan assured him. He reached forward and wrapped his hand around Reid’s. “You’re my best friend, kid. That’s not gonna change. I promise.”

A few moments passed in silence. Reid didn’t respond to Morgan’s reassurement, at least not externally, but then the kid was in shock right now. He simply stared at Morgan’s hand on his.

Morgan started to move his thumb in circles across the back of Reid’s hand, hoping it would help, if only a little bit. “I’m really sorry,” he murmured, just loud enough for the kid to hear him. “You know, if there’s anything you need – at all – then you just find me, yeah?”

Reid nodded, and then his shoulders hunched over and his body began to rock. Morgan slid off his chair and wrapped his arms around the grieving man, gently hushing the sobs that were erupting from Reid’s body.

“I just…I can’t believe…he’s gone,” Reid croaked out.

“I know,” Morgan soothed him. “I know, kid.”

It was a long time before Reid could control himself. When he finally calmed down – almost a full fifteen minutes later – he pulled away from Morgan slightly. The other man understood and separated himself from Reid.

He wanted to ask if Reid was okay, but he knew that it was a stupid question. Instead, he simply said, “Hey, there.”

Reid glanced up to meet his concerned gaze. “Uh…can you…” he began. He took a deep breath. “Can you tell the others about…about me, and, uh…”

He didn’t seem to want to say Jasper’s name. Morgan understood. It would be a hard one for Reid to say from now on. “I’ll let them know,” he promised. “You gonna be okay on your own for a bit? I won’t be long.”

Reid nodded, and Morgan gave him a quick pat on the shoulder before exiting the room.

* * *

 

The process of going through the file and finding whatever evidence they could that would help a profile felt weird without Reid in the room. For one thing, it was strangely quiet without him injecting long-winded statistics into the conversation at every opportunity.

“Marc Ñíguez had a husband,” Prentiss noted. “Rubén Azpilicueta. Do we know if any of the other victims were gay?”

Rossi perused his file. “They went back and asked Henderson’s family if he could have been gay,” he observed, “after Ñíguez was identified. The family said it was impossible, but they’re a religious family from Texas. Could be the reason he moved halfway across the country from them?”

Hotch nodded in agreement. “We should look into that. Get Garcia to find Henderson’s friends. They might know more.” He paused thoughtfully. “And drop in on Reid and Morgan on your way back.”

The team glanced at each other, all hearing the suggestion in Hotch’s voice and then remembering Reid’s reaction to seeing the fourth victim’s face on the screen. They knew the two must be close friends, at the very least, but if the unsub was targeting gay men… Was it possible that Reid had succesfully hidden his sexuality from a bunch of profilers?

Rossi nodded and stood up to leave for Garcia’s office, but at that moment, Morgan walked through the door. The rest of the team looked up as he entered.

“How is he doing?” JJ queried, concern in her eyes.

Morgan sighed. “As well as could be expected,” he answered. “There is something he told me that everybody needs to know, and he has asked me to tell you.” He paused and looked around at the team’s expectant faces. Unbeknownst to him, they were all half-expecting him to say the exact same thing, and a second or so later, he delivered. “Reid is gay. He and the victim – Jasper Randall – were together.”

A hint of suprise flickered across the team’s faces, but they didn’t look nearly as surprised as Morgan had expected. For a moment, he wondered whether they had seen something in Reid’s behaviour that he hadn’t, but he brushed that thought aside. It wasn’t important.

“So, we know that two of our victims were gay,” Prentiss said.

“This looks like a hate crime,” Hotch agreed, and the team murmured in agreement. Morgan realised that they must have been considering that possibility before he’d walked in the door, and that was why they hadn’t been shocked by his relevation about Reid.

“Reid says he hadn’t seen Jasper since Thursday night,” Morgan added. “Apparently Jasper admitted to cheating on Reid, and they had an argument.”

“That’s why he was so jittery yesterday?” JJ asked. The rest of the team looked to Morgan too – after all, they had all noticed Reid’s behaviour.

“Yeah,” Morgan confirmed.

“I’ll go talk to Garcia,” Rossi said, giving Morgan a quick pat on the shoulder before exiting the room.

Hotch looked back at his file, and then glanced at his watch. It was past midnight. “Okay,” he began. “Morgan, I want you to take Reid home and stay with him. Tomorrow morning, JJ, Prentiss, go talk to Rubén Azpilicueta and get a statement. Rossi and I will visit some popular gay bars around the city, see if we can get an ID on the third victim. For now, though, everyone needs to go home and get some sleep.”

* * *

 

Rubén Azpilicueta was dressed in pyjamas and sporting some very dark bags under his eyes when he opened the door on Sunday morning to find JJ and Prentiss on his doorstep.

“Mr. Azpilicueta,” Prentiss greeted. She didn’t miss the resemblance between this guy and Reid – they were both brown-haired, skinny and relatively nerdy-looking. She’d mention that to the rest of the team later. “My name is Agent Prentiss, and this is Agent Jareau. We’re from the FBI. May we come in?”

Azpilicueta nodded and stood aside to let them in. “I assume this is about Marc?” he asked, with a heavy Argentinian accent.

“Yes,” Prentiss confirmed. “We just want to ask you a few questions. It won’t take long.”

The bereaved man guided them to the living room and invited them to sit down. “I would offer you something to drink,” he told them, “but I haven’t been shopping in a while, so all I have is water…?” He trailed off, allowing the statement to become a question.

“We’re fine, thank you,” JJ assured him. “Can you tell us about the last time you saw your husband?”

“About three weeks ago,” Azpilicueta answered. “The third. Two days later, the cops knocked on my door, said they’d found his body.” His voice broke on the last word, and JJ gave him a sympathetic smile.

“Mr. Azpilicueta, if you don’t mind me asking,” Prentiss said. “We know that you didn’t file a missing person report for your husband. Did you know where he was for those two days?”

Azpilicueta shook his head. “I, uh, we had an argument. I assumed he was staying with a friend.”

Both JJ and Prentiss kept their expressions neutral, but they were thinking the same thing. Azpilicueta’s story was identical to Reid’s – both had seen their partners two days before the body was found, both due to an argument, and probably both due to infidelity.

“What was the argument about?” JJ asked, keeping her tone soft.

Azpilicueta avoided the two agents’ eyes as he answered. “Um. Marc told me something – that he’d, uh… He cheated on me. And I told him I needed some time apart, and then…”

“Did he give you a name?” JJ prodded, but Azpilicueta silently shook his head. The two agents could see tears beginning to form at the corners of the man’s eyes.

“Rubén,” Prentiss said, leaning forward a little. She considered reaching out, but that would have been unprofessional, so she settled for just words instead. “What happened to Marc wasn’t your fault. The only person at fault here is the person who did this to him.”

Azpilicueta didn’t seem convinced.

* * *

 

Rossi and Hotch made it through eight gay bars before getting any luck. “Yeah,” said the bartender at bar number nine, looking at the photo Hotch was holding out. “Guy’s a regular. Been in here a lot recently.”

“You got a name?” Hotch asked.

The bartender nodded. “Mitchell. I don’t know his second name.”

“You say he’s been in here more than usual recently?” Rossi prodded.

“Yeah. Well, not since a week or so ago – I haven’t seen him,” the bartender clarified. “But yeah, for a few weeks before that, he was in here a couple times a week. Seen him with two different guys.”

“You got names?” Rossi questioned, but the bartender shook his head.

“I noticed he wore his wedding ring around the brown-haired guy, but not the redhead,” she offered. “I figured he was having an affair or something. Wasn’t really my place to intervene.”

“Can you tell us anything else about the redhead?” asked Hotch.

“Not really. He always got Mitchell to order for him, and they sat right at the back of the bar,” the bartender told them regretfully. “I remember his hair ‘cos it’s hard to miss. That’s all.”

Hotch nodded and thanked her for her time. He and Rossi made their way back to the SUV, with Rossi making a quick call to Garcia to update her on the way. As Hotch began to drive back to Quantico, he and Rossi discussed what the bartender had told them, alongside the update they’d received from Prentiss.

“The redhead has got to be our unsub,” Rossi said. “The fact that Jasper, Marc Ñíguez, and now Mitchell all cheated on their partners can’t be a coincidence. Plus, he stayed clear of people who might recognise him once we started investigating.”

“Especially considering the timelines,” Hotch concurred. “Jasper and Ñíguez both admitted their affairs two days before their bodies were found.”

“So, he seduces his target, convinces them to admit their affairs to their partners, and then kills them?” Rossi concluded.

Hotch frowned. “I don’t think so,” he disagreed. “At least, not exactly. Both Jasper’s and Ñíguez’s whereabouts were unknown for the two days before they were killed – it’s possible the unsub had an agenda.”

Rossi looked over at his boss. “You think he’s holding them? We haven’t found any evidence of torture, and the only evidence of sexual activity wasn’t rough, meaning it was most likely consensual.”

Hotch nodded. “He must be.”

* * *

Once Reid had gotten over the initial shock of seeing the face on the screen – namely, after his crying session in Morgan’s arms – he’d settled into a fuzzy, disoriented state, staring into nothingness with his knees pulled up to his chest.

Morgan had bundled him into his car last night, leaving Reid’s in the FBI car park, and taken him home. He’d tucked Reid into bed, although the genius hadn’t actually managed to sleep, and checked on him in the morning. Somehow, Morgan had managed to get Reid out of bed, dressed, and sat on the sofa. He hadn’t managed to get him to eat. He’d tried yesterday, too, getting Reid water and a snack from the vending machine. The younger agent had sipped the water, and ignored the candy completely.

Reid was vaguely aware of his best friend sitting only a metre or so away from him, studying his copy of the case file. Every so often he would look at his phone, and then send a return text or scribble a note into the file. Reid half-wondered why the team were suddenly communicating via text rather than calling each other.

He stared at the case file for a while. Morgan shifted a bit, obviously aware of Reid’s gaze, and then glanced up. After a second or so, he went back to perusing the file as if nothing had happened.

Part of Reid wanted to jerk his brain into action, grab the case file from Morgan, and find the bastard that had killed Jasper. Another part was aware that nothing he could do would bring him back, and all hope of things ever being okay again was already lost. But those were very distant and quiet parts of him, lost somewhere in the fog and the stupor that made up most of his thoughts right now.

He wondered how much time had passed, and then wondered why he cared.

Eventually, there was a knock at the door, and someone opened it. Reid didn’t look up, but he saw Morgan get up to greet whoever it was. There was a bit of murmuring. He couldn’t make out what was being said. A few seconds later, JJ appeared in front of him.

“Hey, Spence,” she said, crouching down to meet his gaze. He blinked. “Are you up for a chat?”

He shrugged. JJ took that as a yes, and sat down in the seat Morgan had just vacated.

“So, we have a possible suspect,” she explained. “Garcia has CCTV footage of him near a bar in DC with the third victim. Do you think you can take a look, and tell me if you recognise him?”

Reid just shrugged again.

JJ was apparently taking any response from Reid as a positive. She held out a photograph to him. He didn’t look at it.

“Spence?”

When Reid didn’t respond, she glanced up to her left. There was a hint of panic in her already-worried expression. A second later, Reid felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Kid, I know this is hard,” Morgan told him, gently rubbing his hand up and down. “I really do. But we need to know if you recognise this guy, okay? Can you look at the photograph, for me?”

It wasn’t that Reid didn’t want to look, it was just that getting his body to do anything at the moment was taking extraordinary amounts of effort. It was as if his brain knew the reality of the situation, but his body was refusing to accept it.

“Reid, c’mon,” Morgan implored. “We need your help to catch this guy. Okay? You just gotta look at this photo.”

Reid mustered up the energy he had and looked down at the photo in JJ’s hand.

It was grainy and blown up, but he could see the unidentified third victim from Hotch’s briefing talking to a red-haired man, who was maybe in his thirties, wearing a simple grey t-shirt and jeans. The man was average in every face – neither skinny nor muscular, neither attractive nor downright ugly. The only thing about him that stood out was his bright hair. Most people would have forgotten him as soon as they walked away.

Reid, however, had an eidetic memory.

It took a minute or so, but eventually his foggy brain dredged up the memory. “Two weeks ago,” he mumbled. “J – Jas – …uh, dragged me to the gym. The one a couple streets from my place. This guy was one of his workout buddies. Said his name was Charlie.”

“Did you get a surname?” JJ questioned. She was obviously relieved she’d got anything out of Reid at all.

“Uh, Aarons, I think?” he answered. The memory was weirdly blurry – not faded, but just hard to access. It unsettled him just a little.

“Okay,” JJ said. “That’s good, Spence.” She stood up, and then wrapped him in a brief, tight hug. “It’s gonna be okay,” she whispered into his ear. “We’re gonna find this guy. I promise.”

And then she was gone.

* * *

JJ had to take a moment after leaving Reid’s apartment. Seeing Reid retreated into his mind like that was hard, even though she knew it was his way of dealing with the situation. She apparently hadn’t recovered even once she’d made her way back to Quantico; upon entering the bullpen, she was approached almost immediately by Prentiss.

“You okay?” Prentiss’s face was almost unreadable, betraying just a little bit of concern.

“Yeah,” JJ lied.

“He’ll get through this,” Prentiss said, and JJ got the sense that she was trying to convince herself as much as she was trying to convince her colleague. “He’s stronger than he looks.”

JJ nodded. “I know,” she said. “It’s just…I’ve never seen him like this. Even when we lost you, he was never this bad.”

Prentiss’s face softened. “Jasper was his partner,” she reminded JJ. “It’s understandable – especially with how he found out.”

“Yeah, I…” JJ was lost for words. She floundered for a few seconds. “He shouldn’t have to go through this,” she eventually said.

“I know,” Prentiss agreed. She gestured for JJ to walk back to the conference room with her. “Come on. Did you get a name?”

“Yeah. Charlie Aarons,” JJ confirmed. “Reid said he was a gym buddy of Jasper’s.”

Prentiss frowed. “He doesn’t look like he goes to the gym much,” she noted. “Maybe he wasn’t there to get in shape?”

* * *

Garcia was able to find a Charlie Aarons registered as a gym member at Jasper’s gym. The proximity of the gym in question to Reid’s place, plus Garcia fiding out that Jasper had switched gyms from one nearer his own apartment three months ago, did not go unnoticed by the team.

However, this Charlie Aarons did not appear to exist anywhere else. It was obviously a fake name.

“So, this gets us nowhere?” Rossi growled.

“Not – exactly,” Garcia enunciated. She was typing very quickly on her keyboard. A couple minutes later, she pulled up another name. “Jack Winters.”

“Is that his real name?” questioned Rossi.

Garcia shook her head. “I would guess no,” she told him. “I looked for Ñíguez’s gym, and then found a member who checked in and out with Ñíguez regularly. Winters is the only one.” She frowned. “The memberships were paid for under different accounts, but from the same bank.”

A few minutes of intense tapping later, she leant backwards and frowned. “Okay. Jack Winters is a real person – he reported his identity had been stolen, and the account is frozen now.”

Rossi raised his eyebrows. “He used a real person the first time, and then switched to fabricating identities?”

Garcia shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she said. “Winters is seventeen – he’s a foster kid in Baltimore. If he used other minors’ identites, they’d be a bit harder to find…”

“But you know where to look?” Rossi asked hopefully.

The corner of Garcia’s mouth turned upwards. “They don’t pay me for nothing,” she reminded him. “Yep. Charlie Aarons. Sixteen, foster kid, living in Baltimore. And…no common foster houses between him and Winters.”

Rossi pondered that information. “So, we’re looking for someone who works with foster kids in Baltimore, would have access to their information, and hates gay people?”

Garcia nodded. “Looks like it,” she agreed.

* * *

Hotch had sent JJ and Rossi to talk to the kids whose identities had been stolen, while he and Prentiss visited the Baltimore Child Protective Services. He was more optimistic about their chances of getting something from the CPS, since it appeared that Aarons was unaware that somebody else was using his identity, and Winters had already co-operated with the police, but they had to check.

The head of the Baltimore CPS – a guy named Ricardo Moretti – showed the two agents into his office as soon as they arrived.

“Mr. Moretti,” Hotch began, “I’m sure you’ve been informed that someone has been stealing the identities of foster children in the Baltimore area.”

Moretti nodded. “Yes. Did they bring in the FBI for that?” There was more than a hint of doubt in his tone.

“The stolen identities have been connected to a string of murders,” Hotch explained.

“Of course.” Moretti chuckled a little. “A bit too much to expect, for you guys to take the lives of these kids seriously, eh?”

“We do,” Hotch assured him. “But right now, we need a list of everyone who has access to these kids’ information.”

“I’ll send it over,” Moretti promised. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

Prentiss nodded. “Yes. We have this photo of a man we believe is a suspect.” She held out the frame from the CCTV footage. “The one on the right.”

Moretti squinted. “I can’t be sure – it’s not a great quality image…” he said. “But that looks like Quentin Darby.”

Prentiss raised her eyebrows questioningly.

“Quentin is part of the team that tries to find foster homes for the kids,” Moretti explained. “He hasn’t been to work in almost a month. His brother killed himself – July fifth, if I remember correctly. He came in for the odd shift for a while, and then just stopped coming completely.”

* * *

Morgan didn’t really want to admit that he was bored, but he was. He’d gone through the case file again and again, but much of the work had been left to the rest of the team. They’d been working at an incredible rate – probably fueled half by an anger that anybody would hurt Reid, even indirectly, and half by a desire to distract themselves from the pain that their colleague was going through, and which they were powerless to help.

Morgan had, of course, been given regular updates. He’d seen photos of both Rubén Azpilicueta and Mitchell Lemar’s boyfriend, Vin Kohl, and registered that both looked a hell of a lot like Reid. He knew the rest of the team had noted this too, and now knew that the unsub’s brother – a guy called Marcus Darby – also fit the description of “skinny, nerdy, brown-haired gay guy.” According to the police report, Marcus Darby had killed himself two weeks after the end of his relationship with a guy called John Trapp. There wasn’t a suicide note, but it wasn’t too hard to extrapolate that Trapp had had an affair. Trapp himself had apparently moved back to Oregon to live with his sister – Garcia had spoken to him – which left the team to wonder why Quentin Darby hadn’t targeted the guy who’d hurt his brother, but instead moved straight to substitutes in the form of the boyfriends of people who looked like his brother. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have the resources to move to Oregon, after all.

And if he had – and Morgan knew it was kind of an arsehole move to wish this suffering on people in Oregon instead of his friend – but if Darby _had_ gone to Oregon, Reid wouldn’t be curled up on the sofa in unimaginable pain right now.

It had been almost twenty-four hours now since Reid had retreated into his zombie-like state, and he didn’t look like coming out of it anytime soon. There was letting Reid process this at his own pace, and then there was letting him fester and descend into a state of mental health that Morgan wasn’t sure they’d be able to pull him out of…

He looked over at the kid, for about the thousandth time in the past hour, and found that he was unmoved. Morgan sighed. If he was still like this tomorrow, he was going to call a doctor.

For now, though, he simply stood up and made his way to the kitchen. He’d tried to feed Reid candy, cereal, and a sandwich so far – none of which had worked – but he wasn’t going to give up quite just yet. A quick rummage around in the kid’s cupboards procured a tin of soup, which he emptied into a bowl.

By the time he’d warmed the soup and made his way back through to Reid’s front room, though, the kid was lain across the sofa and fast asleep – a sight that Morgan couldn’t help to be relieved at, especially since he was suspicious that Reid hadn’t slept at all last night. Deciding to give the kid some privacy, Morgan returned to the kitchen to eat the soup himself.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! Apologies for the long wait, but I'm pretty busy at the minute and it might be a while between chapters - sorry about that.. Hope you enjoy the update :)

“Darby is off the grid,” Garcia announced. It was early Monday morning, and the team – minus Morgan and Reid, of course – were crowded around her office for an update. “He disappeared completely about two weeks after Henderson’s death. He started using Jack Winters’ identity to target Ñíguez only a couple days after Henderson died, though. But he doesn’t wait ‘til he’s killed Ñíguez to start targeting Mitchell Lemar using Alex Colby’s identity. In fact, he started using Colby’s identity the day before he killed Ñíguez. And again, he started using Charlie Aarons’ identity to target Jasper on September twelfth, ten days before Lemar’s death.

“We know what Darby uses the kids’ identities for,” she continued. “He pays for gym memberships, presents for his targets, meals at restaurants, gas, and hotels. Problem is, he seems to switch hotel between each of his targets, so as soon as he was done with Charlie Aarons’s identity, he would have moved on.”

“CSU has checked out Darby’s house, as well as all the hotel rooms he’s used so far,” Hotch injected. “They haven’t found anything so far, but we’re still waiting on their final reports. All of the hotel receptionists have identified Darby as the one who stayed in the room, and all of the victims have been identified as visitors.”

“We know that Darby is getting impatient,” Rossi said. “He’s speeding up faster than he can find new targets. He also hasn’t had access to the CPS database in about a month, which means he’s planned ahead and has a list of identities ready to use.”

Garcia perked up at that. “I can ask Moretti for the last thing Darby accessed at work,” she exclaimed. “I might be able to work out whose identity he’s using that way.”

Hotch nodded. “Try to find Henderson’s partner, too,” he ordered. “He has to exist somewhere.”

* * *

Prentiss was hunched over a file, her face frozen in a frown. JJ was aware that she hadn’t moved for a long time, even to turn the page – but then, the past few days had been difficult for all of them.

“Prentiss?” she asked, nudging her friend slightly. The darker haired woman looked up, startled.

“What’s up?”

JJ half-smiled. “Just checking you were okay,” she said. “You seemed a bit out of it.”

“Yeah…” The frown on Prentiss’s face returned. “I have, maybe, half a theory. I don’t think Adam Henderson was gay.”

A puzzled expression flickered onto JJ’s face. “How come?”

“We talked to his family, to his friends – if he was gay, he was hiding it from everyone,” Prentiss reasoned, but JJ was quick to counter.

“Reid did that too…”

“I know,” Prentiss said. “But Garcia can’t find a boyfriend, either. And look at his photo – he looks almost exactly like John Trapp. I think he was just a guy that looked like the guy that Darby blames for his brother’s death, and had the bad luck to run into Darby so close to the one-month anniversary of Marcus’s death.”

JJ didn’t look entirely convinced, but she had to admit that Prentiss’s theory did make some sense. “So, Darby kills Henderson – and then gets a taste for revenge?”

Prentiss nodded. “It could be – right?”

* * *

The team got nowhere that day.

Garcia managed to get hold of the last thing Darby had accessed at work, but it turned out he’d only accessed three files – those of Jack Winters, Alex Colby and Charlie Aarons – during his last shift, meaning that he’d likely already run out of identities to steal.

Most of the team agreed that Prentiss’s theory that Adam Henderson was simply a victim of opportunity made sense, and Garcia stopped looking for a possible boyfriend and focused entirely on her search for Quentin Darby. A photo of Darby was released to the media, alongside a press conference by JJ – who had decided she didn’t trust anyone else to give it, and thus briefly re-took up her old role as media liaison – asking for any information leading to Darby’s whereabouts. A few calls had come in, none with anything solid, and the team felt like they’d hit a roadblock.

In fact, the only members of the team who got anywhere that day were Morgan and Reid.

After Reid had fallen asleep on the sofa the night before, Morgan had decided to sleep in the younger agent’s bed so as to not disturb him. Come morning, Morgan awoke to find Reid sat on the kitchen floor, surrounded by the shattered remains of one of his plates, one hand covered in blood.

“Hey, Reid,” Morgan all but yelled, rushing over to his friend’s side. He quickly wrapped a towel around the wound on Reid’s hand. “You okay, kid?”

“I tried to clean it up,” Reid said, in a very matter-of-fact tone.

Morgan glanced around. “Yeah, I can see that,” he replied. “C’mon. Let’s get you to the hospital.”

Reid didn’t even try to resist – although, to be fair, of all the team Reid was the only one who didn’t stubbornly oppose visits to the hospital – and soon the two of them arrived at the emergency room of the closest hospital. A young-looking nurse, who introduced herself as Susan, took a look at Reid’s hand and told him he’d need stitches, but that it wasn’t as serious as it looked. Reid nodded mutely.

It took a while for the doctor to get around to them, since there were several people with more serious injuries that needed attention first, but within a couple hours Reid’s hand was bandaged and the two were back in Morgan’s car.

“Can we go into work?” Reid blurted out suddenly, as Morgan headed towards the exit.

Morgan looked over at Reid, obviously a little confused, but he agreed. “Sure,” he said. “How about we get breakfast first, though?”

But the younger man just shrugged.

* * *

Morgan drove them to a local breakfast place, where he managed to get Reid to eat some scrambled egg and bacon. Once Morgan was satisfied that the kid had eaten as much as he was going to, they headed towards the FBI headquarters.

The first person they saw after getting to Quantico was Rossi, who they bumped into immediately after getting off the elevator. He looked extremely surprised to see Reid, but had his expression under control within a couple seconds.

“Good morning, Reid, Morgan,” he greeted them, although he kept his eyes on Reid. “I didn’t know you’d be coming in today.”

Reid opened his mouth as if to respond, but after a moment he simply shut it again.

“Thought we’d see how the case is getting on,” Morgan said nonchalantly, as if this was just any old case and Morgan and Reid were taking the day off for some completely unrelated reason. “Where’s Hotch?”

“Garcia’s,” Rossi told them. “I’ll see you later, then?” He gave the two of them a nod, and then continued on his way.

Once they got to Garcia’s office, Morgan knocked on the door and poked his head in before entering. Garcia and Hotch, like Rossi, looked somewhat surprised to see him, but gestured for him to come in. Reid followed close behind.

“Hey! My junior G-man!” Garcia exclaimed, leaping out of her seat and holding her arms out for a hug. Reid embraced her, but he pulled away after only a few seconds. Garcia was unfazed; she simply grabbed his shoulders and looked him in the eye. “How are you doing today?”

“Better,” Reid told her. “A bit.”

Garcia beamed. “As long as Morgan’s taking care of you.”

“Oh, I am, baby girl,” Morgan reassured her. “Don’t you worry about that. How’s the case going?”

The smile on Garcia’s face faltered, but she managed to keep it at least partially in place. “I know who the son of a bitch is, I just have to find him,” she told them. Morgan knew she was less positive about the case than she was acting. “He can’t stay hidden from me forever.”

Reid’s face stayed completely neutral as Garcia spoke, but Morgan was just glad he wasn’t quite as lifeless as he’d been on Saturday night and for the whole of Sunday. He’d slept, he’d eaten, and he was up and about – that was a success.

They left Hotch and Garcia to work on the case and headed to the bullpen, where Rossi now was with Prentiss and JJ. The two women had obviously been told that Reid was there, because they managed their expressions well upon seeing him. JJ gave him a quick embrace around the shoulders, and Prentiss squeezed his arm, but other than that neither of them called attention to the last time they’d seen him and he’d been broken and unresponsive.

“Hey,” he greeted them.

“Hey,” JJ replied softly.

A rather awkward silence followed this, in which Reid’s eyes flickered between his colleagues and the ground. Eventually, though, he spoke.

“How’s Henry?”

JJ smiled. “He’s good,” she told him. “You can come round and see him tonight, if you want?”

“Yeah,” Reid said. “Okay. Sure.”

* * *

Morgan was glad to be given some time off baby-sitting Reid. This was especially true since the younger agent had requested to see Jasper’s body on their way back to his from Quantico, so Morgan would be taking him to the morgue the next day. He didn’t really know how the kid would react to seeing his partner’s body laid out on a metal table, pale and post-autopsy, but he knew he had to be emotionally prepared.

JJ had picked Reid up from his apartment on her way home from work and taken him home. Hotch had allowed her home in time for Henry’s Kindergarten hometime, as he was aware of the plans she’d made with Reid. The two of them arrived at JJ’s house not long after Will and Henry had got back.

“Hey, Henry!” Reid exclaimed. JJ was glad to see the small smile that played at his lips. Henry grinned back at him, equally as excited.

“Uncle Spence!”

Morgan had mentioned to JJ to make sure that Reid ate something, as the only thing he’d eaten over the past few days was breakfast that morning. So it was that JJ and Will cooked together while Reid mystified Henry with a series of magic tricks, and for a while, life seemed a little bit more normal.

When it came to food, though, they came crashing back down to earth.

Reid had about two mouthfuls, and then simply pushed his fork around the plate for the remainder of the meal. Henry looked from his almost-empty plate to Reid’s mostly full one.

“You not eating, Uncle Spence?” he inquired.

Reid didn’t respond, but simply continued messing with his fork.

“If you don’t eat, you won’t grow strong,” Henry informed him. “You haf’ta eat to be strong like Daddy.”

That, at least, got a small smile out of Reid, but he still didn’t continue to eat. JJ and Will glanced at each other, a silent agreement forming between them.

“Come on, Henry,” Will ordered. “It’s getting late. You don’t want to be tired for Kindergarten tomorrow, yeah?”

Henry followed Will upstairs surprisingly easily for an almost-four-year-old being told to go to bed early, and JJ and Reid were left alone. JJ collected up the empty plates belonging to her, Will and Henry and placed them in the sink, and then returned to sit down next to Reid.

“Hey, Spence,” she said. “You know, I didn’t want to eat after my sister died, either.”

No response.

“I know it’s hard, and it feels wrong to be eating without him,” she continued. “But Jasper wouldn’t want you to waste away. He’d want you to be happy. Right?”

The mention of Jasper’s name had elicited a response – Reid was now staring at JJ instead of at his plate. She smiled at him, and then reached out to rub his shoulder in comfort.

“I promise you, Spence, it gets better,” she said. “It’s always going to hurt. You’ll always think of him. But someday – someday soon – that pain will be bearable, and you’ll be okay again.”

Reid gave a slow but sure nod. JJ wrapped him in her arms, giving him a quick squeeze before she released him again.

“Now eat up,” she ordered.

* * *

Morgan had never really been bothered by the cold, sterile atmosphere of a morgue – until now. Standing next to Reid as they waited for the medical examiner, one Dr. Olivier, to take them to the body of Reid’s former lover, Morgan felt as if he was standing at the gates of an icy hell.

“Are you sure you’re ready?” he mumbled to Reid. The other man didn’t respond verbally, instead opting for a simple, shaky nod.

As if on cue, Dr. Olivier returned and gestured for them to follow him into the morgue. He led them inside and instructed them to remain behind the glass wall that separated the walkway from the morgue proper. Reid’s eyes landed on a table that had obviously been positioned for a viewing, and sure enough that was the one Dr. Olivier headed towards.

“Ready?” Dr. Olivier asked, and Reid nodded.

“Yeah.”

As Dr. Olivier lifted the sheet, Reid shut his eyes. He wasn’t sure why – it was more instinctive than anything else. He felt Morgan’s hand squeeze his arm.

_Okay_ , he told himself, _you can do this. You wanted to come here. You wanted to see him. You can do this._

He took a deep breath and forced his eyes open.

Jasper was stiller than Reid had imagined. His eyes were closed, and his face was relaxed, but he looked anything but peaceful. The incisions from the autopsy were just visible under the sheet on his chest, and the bruising on his neck was purple and violent.

“Spencer?”

It was Morgan’s voice. Reid glanced over at him, to find the older agent watching him carefully. “Yeah?”

“You okay?” Morgan asked.

Reid wondered what his face must have looked like for Morgan to be asking that.

“I’m okay,” he lied.

* * *

The old, battered blue car sat parked on some random roadside in a neighbourhood that wasn’t too busy nor too upscale. Most passers-by didn’t notice it, and if they did they soon forgot about it. Nobody saw the man sleeping in the back seat, covered in a thin blanket, with his head resting on a scrunched-up hoodie.

It had been parked there for the past two nights, but during the day it disappeared. Somewhere around ten a.m., the man in the back seat would climb into the front and drive off, unseen by neighbours and passers-by alike.

Today, though, it was still there at midday. And today, someone saw the man.

To be fair to her, Julia Eccles was used to weird things happening in her neighbourhood. She was a waitress and didn’t have the money to live anywhere much nicer, and she had long since accepted the little quirks of her neighbours. She knew that the guy down the hall from her was a drug dealer, although she had never bought from him, and that the two brothers downstairs stole cars for a local gang. She’d long since learnt not to get involved.

So when she saw a red-haired man climbing around in an out-of-shape blue car, she didn’t really think much of it. The man, though, saw her, and – paranoia being what it is – assumed she did.

Which is how the car ended up with Julia pinned underneath it, desperately trying to call for help while the red-haired man sped off on foot down the street.

* * *

Quentin was panicking.

It hadn’t even been his car, but he knew they’d somehow trace it back to him. She’d recognise him from the news, and somehow they’d manage to find him and this would all be over…

He didn’t even know why he was doing this.

He’d seen the first guy almost exactly on the one-month anniversary of Marcus’s death, and for a moment he’d thought it was actually that cheating bastard who’d ruined Marcus’s life. It wasn’t until the guy was trussed up in the trunk of his car that he calmed down and realised otherwise. By then, though, he’d figured it was too late.

He’d enjoyed his time with that first one more than he liked to admit. Even more, he’d enjoyed strangling him in what even he knew was a twisted form of revenge. After all, it wasn’t that hard to pretend.

He wasn’t sure why he’d embarked on this elaborate campaign – was campaign the right word? – to rid the world of anyone who reminded him of that scum. All he knew was that, after the first kill, he’d wanted more. Who knew that murder could be so addictive?

It hadn’t gone without any problems. He’d wanted to be sure that the next guy he killed earned it, and so he’d seduced him. It had worked – very easily, in fact. He’d let the couple have their goodbye, and then he’d taken his revenge on the cheater.

The next guy hadn’t been so easy. He’d gone back to the hotel with Quentin, but he’d tried to back out. Quentin hadn’t found it in him to care about that. His gun had come in useful before, with the first guy – why not use it again?

This next guy would be his fifth. He didn’t remember all their names – all of them were just blurred into one person to him – but he remembered each kill perfectly. How good it felt. How _powerful_ he was.

He’d found him the day before, but he wasn’t sure how to get close. He’d thought he’d just do two or three, and he’d feel better, but the urges were just getting stronger and he didn’t have the option of buying a gym membership now. He knew the FBI were investigating now, and if he used his own bank account or one of the kids’, they’d know immediately.

He was alone, though…

Quentin watched the man as he exited the shop and headed back to his car. He knew that this was as good a chance as he was going to get, but he barely had a plan as he raced over. His hand was wrapped around the gun hidden in his jacket ready to whip it out, but even as he grabbed the man’s shoulder, he didn’t really know what he was about to do.

“Hey!” the man yelled.

“Quiet!” Quentin growled. He saw the man’s gaze fixate on his gun. “Do as I say, or I’ll use it. Got it?”

The man nodded silently, his eyes wide with terror.

“Get in the car.”

Quentin forced the man to drive them to a nearby hotel, and then instructed him to pay for a room. The man was sweating and nervous, but Quentin simply told the hotel staff that he was ‘a little under the weather.’ They didn’t ask any more questions.

The room was on the fourth floor. The woman in the lift with them kept glancing over and edging slightly further away, as if she believed the man was contagious. They didn’t see anyone else on the way to their room, and Quentin definitely didn’t see that the man had his hand in his pocket.

* * *

Reid’s phone rang at 9:22pm. He just stared at it.

“You gonna answer that, kid?” Morgan asked him. They were back at Reid’s, sat side by side on his sofa, after spending the afternoon watching Reid’s old Star Trek DVDs and eating takeout pizza (which Reid had eaten a decent amount of, Morgan was pleased to see).

Reid just shrugged.

After a minute or so, the phone stopped ringing. Thirty seconds later, it started again.

“Really?” Morgan grumbled, checking the caller ID. It wasn’t someone he recognised. “Who’s Jared?”

Reid blinked. “Uh. A friend,” he mumbled, grabbing the phone from Morgan and speaking into it. “Hey.”

“Hugo’s gone,” Jared informed him, foregoing greetings. There was a tangible panic in his voice. “He called 911 from his pocket – they still have him on the line.”

Reid blinked again, more slowly this time. “What?”

“They said the guy’s taken him to a hotel, and they think he has a gun,” Jared said. “And I know – fuck, man, I know shit’s going on. I heard about Jasper, and I’m sorry about that, I really am, I know it’s gotta be shit for you, but I – this guy’s targeting gay guys, right? What if he took Hugo?”

Reid frowned. “That’s not his MO,” he explained, as he massaged his eyebrow. “He researches…” But he ran out of identities to use, Reid realised, and he _had_ taken Hugo to a hotel. “Do they know which hotel?”

“They won’t tell me,” Jared explained. “They won’t tell me anything.”

Of course they wouldn’t. Reid growled softly. “Where are you?”

* * *

Having Will on point for a bust like this was a mistake, Ellie thought. Sure, he was her partner and a great cop, but he’d been too distracted recently. She knew something was up with his wife’s friend, or something like that. He hadn’t said much about it, as he didn’t say much about anything, but it was obviously affecting him.

He’d been assigned to point, though, so there he was. She silently prayed that nothing went wrong.

They’d been forced to wait for a SWAT team – the perp had a gun, after all – but it was always tempting to just barge in. They didn’t know why this guy had been brought to this hotel, but it was obvious that his life was in danger, and the longer they left it, the more danger he was in.

But the SWAT team was ready now, and they were about to go. Ellie hoped that they were in time.

“Three… Two… One..” Will muttered under his breath, and then motioned for the SWAT leader to break the door down. He barged into the room, gun at the ready, and almost froze at the sight.

He recognised that face. JJ had shown him the photo. This was the guy they were looking for – the guy who’d killed Reid’s boyfriend. And here he was, standing with a gun to some poor, half-naked schmuck’s head, on some random call that should have had nothing to do with the BAU’s case.

“Put the gun down, Quentin,” he ordered. “It’s over.”

Darby stared at him with wide, startled eyes. He didn’t move.

“Put the gun down!” Will repeated. “Put it down, and move away from the man.”

Darby had obviously decided he had no other choice, because he suddenly dropped the gun and backed into the wall with his hands raised. The man – Hugo Masson, or so intel had told them – grabbed his pants and shirt from where they’d fallen on the floor, and started putting them back on.

Will wasted no time in grabbing Darby and shoving him against the wall. “Quentin Darby,” he growled, as he fastened his handcuffs around Darby’s wrists, “you’re under arrest for the murder of Jasper Randall.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Will could see Ellie staring at him curiously, but he didn’t care.

* * *

 

The team had been getting nowhere. Darby was completely off the grid, and they seemed to have absolutely no leads whatsoever. They’d had cases before where all their leads had petered out and solving it seemed nigh on impossible, but it had never felt quite like this. They had seemed so close, and yet they were still nowhere near catching Darby. And all the while, Reid was hurting.

They were gathered in the conference room, trying to find whatever clue they’d managed to miss every time they’d scoured the case file thus far. They’d gone back to Rubén Azpilicueta, tracked down Mitchell Lemar’s boyfriend, gone back to the bar, gone to all the gyms, talked to the kids…

There had to be something. There had to be a way forwards from here.

Prentiss was just about to offer to order some form of takeout for dinner when JJ’s phone started ringing.

“Jareau,” she answered automatically.

“Hey, babe,” Will greeted her. “So I just arrested Quentin Darby.”


End file.
